Antarctic to Zimbabwe – Day 1 can be found here.
The flight to Santiago runs a full 10.5 hours. It’s a daunting amount of time to spend in the air, and yet I’ve preferred this flight to virtually all others we’ve done in the past – including Costa Rica, Morocco, Ecuador and France.
This is due both to the timing and the lack of stopovers – departing around midnight means that everyone was properly tired by the time the meal trays were collected, while 10 hours is long enough to get settled, have said meal, and still manage about 7 hours of sleep.
We woke to a beautiful sight – the Andes!
Our son and daughter each got about 5 hours rest, while I managed the full 7. My wife perhaps dozed for 3 hours, but she rarely sleeps on planes.
We touched down in Santiago an hour later, where it felt like we did three laps of the airport before eventually reaching immigration and customs control. The lines seemed daunting, but everything was well-organized and we collected our baggage perhaps 20 minutes after landing – which must be a new record for us.
Out to the meet-and-greet area, where I felt a familiar sinking in my stomach – the feeling that our driver wouldn’t be there, and that our carefully-planned transportation arrangements were come to naught.
But no – he was twenty feet back from the pressing crowds. We introduced ourselves, he grabbed our bags, and we soon departed the Llama Zone:
The first rule of the Llama Zone is that you must tell everyone that there’s a Llama Zone
Of all our travel expenses, transfers are the one element where we say, “I don’t care what it costs, I just want it to work”. We’ve reached this conclusion for several reasons –
1.) We have an ungodly amount of luggage and so normal cabs don’t work for us;
2.) There is nothing worse than trying to figure out transportation when everyone is standing outside an airport, hot, cranky and tired;
3.) Drivers around the world have wildly varying concepts of “safety”, and we prefer not to travel with someone whose idea of defensive driving is screaming into only one phone at a time.
So that’s how we ended up paying US$80 ($100 with tip included) for a 30 minute drive in Santiago.
We were promptly greeted by the concierge, Naomi, with whom we had been e-mailing as we’d hoped to set up the shuttle, connecting rooms, and so on – it took perhaps a minute of her time, but it really made us feel appreciated as guests.
The high level of service didn’t end there – we were soon checked in, and informed that our first room was already available, despite it only being 12:30 pm. Very welcome news to anyone coming off an overnight flight.
We’d wondered if we’d have any problems with the booking, given that it had been made on points by a family member. Sheraton did attempt to check us in for our next stay in November – when we’ll be arriving from after a week in the Atacama desert – but that was soon straightened out.
We also changed some American dollars into Chilean pesos. Generally dollars are accepted in most places, but we wanted to have smaller bills for tips. Next time I would simply carry more small US bills and change over currency later, but it scarcely rates on the Inconvenience meter. Plus they gave us a coupon for four free drinks!
Up to our room to change – where they had already finished cleaning our second room. The rooms we booked are small but clean and comfortable:
Off to the poolside restaurant for lunch. They mostly do a lunch buffet, though other options are available on request. There’s essentially one menu for most of the hotel – definitely it applies to the pool bar, lobby bar, and 21st floor lounge, though we’re not sure about the dinner restaurant, El Cid. It doesn’t have fantastic reviews so we’re going to try to eat at the the 21st floor instead.
In the mean time, most of us opted for the buffet – which was delicious, but a ton of food. The highlight was a Gaucho-style barbeque with sausages, chicken, striploins, and beef tenderloin, accompanied with potatas bravas (spicy potatoes) and a wide range of sides and desserts.
My son opted for a cheeseburger (which I forgot to photograph), while my wife, daughter and I enjoyed the tenderloin:
Washed down with an ice-cold Pisco Sour:
Pisco sours were one of the unexpected hits of our first visit to Chile, almost 19 years ago.
Chile was the furthest we could get with the flight credits my wife had been given as a present for graduating from university. And we’ll be returning to the resort we first visited – Cascada de las Animas – later this trip!
Pisco itself is made by distilling fermented grape juice, similar to brandy but with its own distinctive character. There’s an ongoing debate between whether Chile or Peru first invented pisco – naturally we favour Chile.
After, we went for a swim in the surprisingly-cold pool:
Though it was a pleasant contrast to the exceptionally hot summer weather (currently 35 C).
Another guest hopped into the pool and insisted in swimming in ever-varying and unpredictable paths, so I was forced to adjust my own swim pattern accordingly.
Then we had a nice lounge in one of the pavilions, where we chatted and read for a while before exploring the hotel grounds.
And my daughter found a playground:
At this point it was almost 4 pm, so it was time to head up to our rooms to shower and change. I’d been wise enough to shower immediately before we left for our flight, but that first post-flight shower still felt glorious – there’s a particular kind of grime that builds up during a long flight, and I’m always glad to get rid of it.
We still had a bit of time before dinner, so we went down to the lobby bar so that the kids could start wrapping their heads around remote schooling.
The bar has quite the drinks list:
And the adults tried some of the house specials, including the chomunguen (foreground) and the temporera (background):
The kids both managed to get a few assignments done. We made it clear to the school that we’re not going to keep up day-by-day, but we do want to cover the key topics.
We then went up to the 21st floor lounge to browse the menu. (This was when we realized that most of the hotel shares the same menu.) But it was reasonably priced, and the view was stunning:
The lounge itself was also stylish and comfortable:
Photo credit: Marriott
For dinner, I had the crispy chicken sandwich:
While the kids each had a salami pizza:
And my wife had the pizza blanca:
The blanca had hot honey, pistachios, fresh mozzarella and chives. Not my scene, but my wife loved it!
The kids asked for chocolate milk, which they didn’t have – but instead offered to mix in-house. The result was as tasty as it looks:
Food orders generally take around 20 – 30 minutes to come through, so it wasn’t a fast meal but we weren’t in any rush.
We wrapped dinner at around 8:30 pm, and the kids headed back to the room. Grateful as we were for the sleep we’d managed during the flight, everyone was crashing hard.
With nothing planned for tomorrow hopefully the children will sleep in and we can all get caught up on sleep before our next flight – less than 36 hours away.
Continue reading Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 3.